


Drained

by BalefireFlatlands



Series: The Balefire [8]
Category: Mad Max (Video Game 2015)
Genre: M/M, that stage 6 shipping yo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:11:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16960719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BalefireFlatlands/pseuds/BalefireFlatlands
Summary: Blas tending to Scab while he does his bloodbag duties.





	Drained

“How you feelin’ then?” Blas Cap stood behind the table Scab was laying on, running a hand down his back. The War Boy was stretched out on his side, head laying on his arms with his eyes closed. He made a soft noise and half opened his eyes, shakily unfurling his lanky limbs and turning to prop himself up on his palms. He wobbled a bit as he leaned over the edge of the table to look at the woman laying on the ground below him. She looked … alive. Which she hadn’t a few days ago.

Blas helped support him as the War Boy turned onto his back and then over to face him. He gently ran his fingers under the thick tubing running out from Scab’s chest, making sure he didn’t tangle himself in the line streaming his blood into the injured Wastelander on the floor.

“My blood flows like fire. Pure. She doesn’t deserve it.” Scab snorted, but his words didn’t have the shrill forcefulness they normally did. Weakened from blood loss he wasn’t as much of a terror as normal. “I feel like a useless sack of blood laying on a table in the middle of the Balefire, surrounded by a bunch of scum-sucks.”

With a roll of his eyes Blas handed him the canteen he’d brought, before readjusting the blanket that was supposed to be covering his legs and keeping him warm as Scab was doing his bloodbag duties. “You ain’t hanging upside down in a Mechanic’s lab though. And they’re gonna unhook you tomorrow.”

Four days was the most they would use Scab for. And less if possible. That was the concession that Blas had forced out of Jeet after Scab had nearly died the first time they’d used him as a bloodbag. He’d gotten so weak he’d passed out after the fifth day and a very highly agitated Blas Cap had unhooked him from the bloodline without Jeet’s permission. Jeet, of course, had been pissed as all hell, but even he had been slightly concerned when the War Boy had continued to lay limp and lifeless for a further three days. Scab would have died during that time if Blas hadn’t been carefully dripping water down his throat and making sure he didn’t choke on it. Once he’d woken back up Blas had confronted Jeet about taking better care of his prisoners and they’d come to that compromise, mostly because seeing the normally placid Bullet Boy worried and distraught had actually made Jeet a little anxious himself.

“They better.” Scab grumbled some more, but was easily distracted by the food and water Blas had brought him. There was one perk to being a bloodbag, and that was him getting triple the amount of food he normally got. He had to eat for himself, for the person he was hooked up to, and then for himself again to replace all the blood he was losing. Luckily for Jeet’s stockpile of food they didn’t need to use Scab that often. His people were safe within the walls of the lighthouse, and those who were on scavenging missions either survived attacks with minor injuries or were killed, usually nothing in between.

Blas watched him eat ravenously and then drop back down onto his side, too weak to even prop himself up for very long. He continued to pet down his exposed torso, eyes on the large gauge needle and metal contraption stabbed into his chest through a flaming symbol of Scrotus. “That hurt much?”

Scab’s eyes fluttered but didn’t quite open back up, he spent most of the time while he was on the blood-table sleeping. “I’m a War Boy. Don’t feel pain.”

Blas stopped petting him, watching as right on cue Scab squirmed and grunted softly, wanting the attention back. Finally opening his eyes he managed a pathetic looking glare up at the Bullet Boy. “A little. Mostly hurts when they put the needle in.”

With a smile Blas resumed his stroking, knowing exactly how to cajole what he wanted out of the needy War Boy. Scab sighed happily and closed his eyes again, basking in the soft caresses. Blas pulled the blanket up to Scab’s chest, wrapping it around him like a burrito so that he couldn’t accidentally squirm out of it.

“I’ll be back for you tomorrow. Get some sleep.” The only response Blas got was a muffled hmphing sound and Scab curling into the blanket.

Blas was still asleep when his thin mattress shifted and Jeet was crawling across it, laying Scab out next to the Bullet Boy. “Figured I’d save you the trouble of coming to get him.” Not that Jeet was concerned about Blas carrying the heavy War Boy one-armed when he was so scrawny he looked like he might break in half if he bent over too fast. “He’s crankier than normal, damn girl woke up and ripped the line out of her arm. Blood everywhere.”

“MY blood. A waste! What do you think about that Imperator? Wasting precious resources. Ought to have her killed.” Scab sneered as he tried to sit up, but Jeet shoved him back down, holding him there until he calmed down somewhat.

“You keep talking like that and I’m gonna kick you into a storeroom til you shut up.” Eyes flicking up to Blas he frowned. “You wanna sleep? I can stuff him somewhere else.”

Blas shook his head, sitting up and placing his hand on the bandage over Scab’s chest. “I’ll take care of him.”

Jeet sighed heavily, backing out of the alcove to go back to running his stronghold. “All the War Boys in the waste and I get stuck with this loudmouth piece of junk.” Things would have been so much easier if Blas shared his hatred of Scab.

But he didn’t. Blas carefully pulled the blankets around the War Boy and nestled against his side. Scab was freezing cold, weakened from lack of blood and already asleep as soon as Jeet had left. He didn’t sleep nearly as much as Blas, plagued by nightmares and memories, he didn’t enjoy sleeping at all, it was just a thing he had to do sometimes when his body gave out. A weakness. But spending four days having his blood siphoned out was more than enough to knock him out for nearly a day.

He woke slowly to warmth around him, and something soft on either side. Opening his eyes he found that Blas had wedged rolled up blankets on both sides of him to keep him from flailing in his sleep and twisting his legs around. He’d actually injured himself before because he had no idea where his lower half was at any point in time. Instead of getting up, or starting his daily routine of crawling out of the alcove and yelling at anyone he could see, he closed his eyes and basked in the warmness, one hand coming up to feel the wound on his chest from the bloodline, then dropped back to the blanket.

Softness was a thing to be despised. As a War Boy he shunned any form of weakness, but drained of his blood he had no choice but to lay there and recover. And though he’d never admit it, it was … nice. Relaxing. Comforting. Feelings he’d never experienced before coming to the lighthouse. A short while later Blas came back to check on him, smiling when Scab reached out for him to pull him close. He didn’t like to see the proud War Boy damaged and weak, but he did enjoy how soft he was when no one but Blas was around to see it.

Blas lay next to him, draping his arm across his stomach. With a grunt Scab reached down and pulled Blas’s arm up a few inches, so that he could feel that warmth against him, wanting the attentive stroking of those fingers. Blas complied leaning up a bit so he could look down at his stomach. “Can you not feel that?”

Scab eyed Blas for a second before he wrapped his fingers around Blas’ wrist, directing his hand to an area right above his navel. “Right there’s where it stops being alive.” There was about a two inch band around his middle where feeling was touch and go or fuzzy, but everything below there was numb. To him his lower half was dead.

“What happened?”

“I told you already.” Scab didn’t like to talk about it, it was like admitting weakness in addition to reliving the humiliating trauma that ended his glorious War Boy career and sent him careening into despair and worthlessness.

“I know about the car. I mean why don’t your legs work?” Blas didn’t get it. Scab looked fine, didn’t have any obvious injuries. Whatever it was must have been terrible, he was woken up several times a night by Scab having nightmares or in actual physical pain from extremities he couldn’t feel anymore. At least that second one Blas was all too familiar with, his missing arm hurt most of the time, sometimes so badly he was incapacitated, writhing around on the mattress and trying not to scream.

Scab set his jaw, tempted to snap back with something sharp, but he was compromised by the warmth next to him, the soft stroking from the Bullet Boy and fuzziness from being a bloodbag. “Crushed my spine in the crash. Would have been a glorious death otherwise. Should have been.” He frowned, he should have died, and he spent most of his time wishing he had. Shifting abruptly he turned his back on Blas, sliding his hand to his back. “Feel it? Rusted out and broken. Worthless.”

Blas ran his fingers down Scab’s backbone, stopping when he felt something different than the other vertebrae. He could see the affected area immediately though, scars crisscrossed across his spine in one small area where the Organic had tried to fix what was broken. One of the bones near his waist was protruding slightly more than the others, and felt strange under Blas’ hand, had hollow pockets like it was missing bits.

And then he asked the question Scab had been dreading. “Will it heal?”

Scab winced and closed his eyes, not wanting to think about this at all, had already thought about it every day since the accident. He was just a rusted shell of his former self.

“No.”

Blas very carefully rolled Scab back over so he could lean against his chest, starting to pet him again.

“Organic said there’s all these cords that go through my spine that got severed. Like cutting a brake line except you can’t just get a new one and fix it. My legs don’t know they’re attached to me anymore.” Scab let himself be cuddled, closing his eyes and making a snuffling sound that made Blas incredibly uncomfortable. “Might as well not be.”

“It’s better if they’re there than not having them at all.” Blas wrapped his arms around the War Boy, holding him in place with his one remaining hand. They were both so broken, worthless in the eyes of the cults they belonged to. But not here, here they had purpose. Blas could still work on ballistics, still help with war, and Scab was keeping injured people in the stronghold alive, was Blas’ assistant when he needed it, and made contraptions out of junk that Jeet gave him.

“You’re so soft, Bullet Boy.” But Scab’s voice held none of the usual malice, something like fondness coloring his words.

“Fine. I like you having your legs cos it gives me something to hold onto.”

Scab grinned and chuckled breathlessly. “That’s more like it.” He sank into Blas’ arms, not caring that he himself looked soft as a newborn pup right now. There was no need to keep up his War Boy image with Blas who couldn’t care less. It was Jeet that he needed to be strong in front of, needed to prove his worth constantly to the man who controlled the lighthouse.

Reaching up he pulled Blas’ stump of an arm further around himself, wanted the closeness, normally Blas tried to not move that arm at all, letting it hang at his side as if moving it would be a constant reminder that half of it was missing. But Scab didn’t care, half of his entire body didn’t work and if Blas was going to hold him like a weakling then he wanted it done properly.

Scab still had no idea why Blas seemed to like being around him even though he was a worthless husk, but he’d take it. It was all he had. And he’d protect it fiercely.


End file.
